MOVIES GETTING MADE:A feature film on BC’s fabled Okanagan Lake monster “Ogopogo” will shoot in Winnipeg this summer, with the Jim Henson Creature Shop building the animatronic monster (hey, why not just use the real one?) . . . A movie on the life of Keith Moon, late member of the soon-to-resurrect rock band The Who, is being developed, with Nicolas Cage interested in playing Pete Townsend (we’ve lost track — how many ‘farewell tours’ have they had now?) . . . Keanu Reeves will star as an inner-city Little League baseball coach in the upcoming movie “Hardball” (about a fastball that explodes if it goes under 50 mph) . . . Linda Hamilton has committed to starring in planned 3rd and 4th “Terminator” films, but neither her ex-, director James Cameron, or star Arnold Schwarzenegger will be baaack!

WIDE WORLD OF BS:• No one can curse up a storm quite like the people of an impoverished area of Rome called the Trastevere. Linguistic researchers studying the local dialect say the residents have more than 2,000 words to describe human sex organs alone! (704 of them involve tweezers.)
• Customs officers and policemen in London will soon have ‘Superman’-like power to battle drug smuggling. As early as this August they’ll be using special ‘x-ray glasses’ to peer into tourists’ luggage. (If you’re traveling to Britain this summer you’re advised to wear your Kryptonite underwear.)
• In the new edition of the Italian magazine “Oggi”, a retired Sicilian professor claims that William Shakespeare was actually Italian, born Michelangelo Florio Crollalanza in Messina, Sicily. The wacky prof alleges that the bard later moved to England because of the Inquisition. (“Is that a gnocci I see before me?”)
• Over 7,000 women in France took advantage of a government offer to be ‘soldiers-for-a-day’. It was an attempt by the military to attract more women by giving them a 24-hour taste of army life. (It also caused the mostly male regular troops to spring to attention.)

BS REASONS TO PARTY . . .Today is “Scrabble Day”, honoring one of the world’s most popular games. The highest score recorded for a single word is held by Cathy Evans of Redbridge ENG who played ‘QUETZALS’ for 365 points during a 1986 tournament. By the way, there are 100 letter tiles and 225 squares on a standard game board.
Scrabble was invented by Alfred Butts, a jobless architect who came up
with the idea for the game during the Depression. The game was just a fad
with Butts’ friends until a Macy’s executive saw it being placed at a resort
in 1952, and the world’s largest store began carrying it. Butts was born on
this date in 1899.

Talk about your BS! The annual week-long “World Cow Chip Throwing Championships” wind up this weekend in Beaver OK. (Last year several spectators were upset when the chips hit the fans.)
PHONER: 580-625-4726

ON THIS DAY IN THE ’90S . . .1997 At age 21, Tiger Woods becomes the youngest player ever to win the Masters
1997 Pittsburgh Penguin superstar Mario Lemieux’s last regular NHL game
1998 ‘Dolly’ the cloned sheep gives birth the natural way to ‘Bonnie’